this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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I like the description of power plants being nothing but glorified water boilers.
Nuclear reactors are just a very fancy way to boil water
Coal power plants and other plants that burn solids are also water boilers.
gaseous and liquid fuels are better to use directly in a gas turbine (jet engine), so those don't usually boil water.
That is exactly what they are though. Fossil fuel generators burn coal and oil to boil water, nuclear fission reactors use uranium to boil water, and nuclear fusion generators use really hot water to boil water. the only exceptions are renewables, cause they turn the turbine directly instead of using steam to do it.
When it comes to renewables, it depends! Solar reflector systems, for example, concentrate sunlight onto a specific point, usually to heat water and turn a turbine. Semiconductor solar cells use the photoelectric effect to turn sunlight directly into electricity. Wind turbines run a dynamo, like the one on your bike or hand-crank radio, which generates electricity directly by basically becoming a reverse electromagnet.